Upgrade prices

[Finerty]

I think it's time to lower the upgrade price on gear. When SL came out it was 1 or 2 of the upgrade stones to get a dungeon drop to turn into a tiered piece to work towards your crystal. With NT it costs nearly the same if not more to upgrade a dungeon piece as it does to buy the piece out from the dungeon merchant.

No I'm not saying lower the price on the upgrade parts but the amount you need to upgrade a piece should be cut 80%. 9 parts to upgrade my helm, gain a few stats but get the crystal tier enabled. Not worth it when 9 parts=18000 dungeon marks. Not to mention the purple upgrade piece I need along with the 9 parts.

Please Trion, wtf?

[Wonk]

The costs used to reversed, in the past (pre-NM) if you wanted gear the cost to use credits was very high, almost to the point of being foolish, now... the credit cost is low and the game token cost is almost foolish. I'll let you figure out why the huge change.

[Ysmyrlda]

Tis IMO, just mine, or maybe others, corp greed. They want your money. This expac seems a lo t like F2P but we've made it so damned inconvenient that you'll probably just fork out cash instead of grinding it out.

8 pieces of armor I think? so my shoulders cost 9 of the upgrade parts, if i grind that out w patron boost item that's 10 dungeons per week or 4k coin. I'd need 18,000 coin to up grade or about 4.5 weeks of experts. FOR ONE ITEM..

So yea, pay and it's easier. Buy a few REX to cover the in game cost? What I'm saying is there's no incentive in game to grind for all the items and a big one to pay. I think it's a good idea from a corp view, but horrible on a human one.

I completely agree the costs are far too high. If there was another MMO like this out there I and quite a few I've talked to would be there. But there isn't, Trion is in a sweet spot.

There are of course many other MMO's but they're either sub based or more heavily P2W than this one is. Or have horrible things like slow grindy crafting with a decent chance to fail after you've spent days to gather mats, or F2P except for certain important content.

So right now this is probably the best, but someday, something WILL come along. For now pay up largish amonts of cash in our F2P or do the grind, per item.

After all if you spend $40 per month, it's only $480 per year. If that was an upfront cost for a sub would you pay it?

I'd like to see something like 3 to 5 max per item. Then you could grind, it would still take a fair amount of weeks, but a few $ and some grind balanced wouldn't be so bad. Grinding now is looking insurmountable.

[evantide]

It's also much more comparatively easy to get marks though.

Void stones + patron can already get you 27k a week from weeklies + DRR only. Crusader marks are capped if you do weeklies + experts/WFs (Even less with patrons). Raid marks are currently the only currency you can't cap at all.

In SL, you'd have to be slugging for a long time to hit cap on ESMs. At minimum, you'd need all T1s cleared out. You also didn't get as much passively cause no perma patron 40% boost. On top of that, IS gear wasn't anywhere near as powerful as it is now nor was shard hopping as easy.

[karetsos]

the cost of efficiently playuing this game has gone terrible up since the new update...

it's like Trion (with all the statistical data they have) sees that lots of people abandon this game, so they have decided to grab as much cash as they can from the rest of us, while they still can...

on the other hand they do nothing to fic the lag in the Rifts, the Events, the AH, many of the new areas etc etc

it's time to consider searching for another game, it's just a shame i invested so much time and cash on this game...

[MisterWibble]

I think it's time to lower the upgrade price on gear.

We're not even a month into the expansion, and already this? I'm pretty much a casual, and I've already upgraded 4 of my expert DPS gear (the expert drops can have more favourable stats than the vendor ones, remember that). That's without ever getting close to currency capped.

[karetsos]

We're not even a month into the expansion, and already this? I'm pretty much a casual, and I've already upgraded 4 of my expert DPS gear (the expert drops can have more favourable stats than the vendor ones, remember that). That's without ever getting close to currency capped.

then what's the point of crafting?

let's abandon crafting then and only do experts...

[MisterWibble]

then what's the point of crafting?

let's abandon crafting then and only do experts...

Crafted gear seems to be only useful to get you into experts, tbh. So yes.. once you have that hit, it makes more sense to take a shortcut and upgrade your expert drops. That way you can use your voidstones for more relevant things.

[Finerty]

Get chest piece from store for 18500 marks or have one drop in a dungeon and upgrade it for 18000+ Amender. Seems to high a cost. Trion please bring the amount of upgrade parts needed back in line with reality.

[MisterWibble]

Get chest piece from store for 18500 marks or have one drop in a dungeon and upgrade it for 18000+ Amender. Seems to high a cost. Trion please bring the amount of upgrade parts needed back in line with reality.

The chest pieces from the store also require the additional upgrade cost to work with your crystal. You're setting yourself back 18.5k marks (or about 9 Abyssal Crusader's Accelerators) just by buying the chest from the store in stead of using the dungeon drop which is already on the same level.

The upgrade for the chest (most expensive piece in the store) is 12 Abyssal Crusader's Acelerators, or 24k marks. This is regardless of it being store bought or dungeon drop, it is a cost you will always incur to make these blue items part of a set.

In other words:
Getting and upgrading chest from dungeon: 24k marks
Buying and upgrading store chest: 42.5k marks

Upgrading epic dungeon drops (in this case a chest) only cost me 4 ACAs, and a textile amender.It is worth running dungeons to get a hold of these drops instead, as you will be saving a lot of marks.

So yeah, depending solely on store bought items is a sub-optimal strategy.

[lynspottery]

I was trying to upgrade some of my crafted armor in order to be at par to run experts with my guild mates. The first upgrade metal amender, although a bit costly, I could see one of. However, the next tier wanted one advanced metal amender and 8 Void Source Accelerators and that is just to take the chest piece from a blue to another blue with not that big a jump in stats.

I upgraded my Detailed Thalasite Halberd 2h weapon from the original crafted item, but when I went to upgrade it to the next and final tier, the cost skyrocketed. In order to obtain the exquisite Thalasite Halberd I needed not only the advanced weapon amender, but 20 Void Stone Accelerators. Those cost 5850 VS or 540 credits on the Rift store.

So just to upgrade two items to where I would at least be able to be competitive just doing lvl 65 content, I would have to spend a fortune.....which I do not have. I can't even reach a cap of vs each week...you see, I am a casual player. But I am also not made of money, so I do not see where I shall be able to enjoy the higher end content anytime soon.

I craft and have found it more cost effective to craft my own gear rather than purchase it. Most drops I've gotten I can't use as my current gear is a bit better. I've also seem prices for my crafted gear on the AH tank so I can't even get return on my investment.

Folks like me will lose interest in the game as this is a bit steep a price to pay for just a couple of items that don't even turn purple. If I can't see any way of getting my gear upgraded enough to do experts so I can qualify for rolling on much better gear, I may end up leaving the game altogether.

I started with Rift back in beta, through headstart and launch. I played as a sub player for a long time and took a break before SL came out. I came back shortly before the f2p was announced and I must say, I much prefer the sub model over any of the f2p games.

[Techie Will]

I was trying to upgrade some of my crafted armor in order to be at par to run experts with my guild mates. The first upgrade metal amender, although a bit costly, I could see one of. However, the next tier wanted one advanced metal amender and 8 Void Source Accelerators and that is just to take the chest piece from a blue to another blue with not that big a jump in stats.

The third tier of crafted gear is Expert Dropped Gear level, not entry level. There's zero need to upgrade that far.

I'd like to see expert dropped items to have an adjustment made to their upgrades. Currently, you upgrade blue items to a higher stat purple item that adds to your set bonus. There should be a tier added between the current dropped version and the upgraded epic, that adds the set bonus.

The tiers for dropped items should be the following:

1. Dropped Rare item is the same as current.
2. Upgrade the first time, same stats as the rare but adds to your set bonus (low cost, basic accelerator and 1-2 accelerators).
3. Upgrade the second time, same stats as the current Epic upgrade (cost higher, maybe minus the cost of the first upgrade).

[Shattered]

I was trying to upgrade some of my crafted armor in order to be at par to run experts with my guild mates. The first upgrade metal amender, although a bit costly, I could see one of. However, the next tier wanted one advanced metal amender and 8 Void Source Accelerators and that is just to take the chest piece from a blue to another blue with not that big a jump in stats.

I upgraded my Detailed Thalasite Halberd 2h weapon from the original crafted item, but when I went to upgrade it to the next and final tier, the cost skyrocketed. In order to obtain the exquisite Thalasite Halberd I needed not only the advanced weapon amender, but 20 Void Stone Accelerators. Those cost 5850 VS or 540 credits on the Rift store.

So just to upgrade two items to where I would at least be able to be competitive just doing lvl 65 content, I would have to spend a fortune.....which I do not have. I can't even reach a cap of vs each week...you see, I am a casual player. But I am also not made of money, so I do not see where I shall be able to enjoy the higher end content anytime soon.

I craft and have found it more cost effective to craft my own gear rather than purchase it. Most drops I've gotten I can't use as my current gear is a bit better. I've also seem prices for my crafted gear on the AH tank so I can't even get return on my investment.

Folks like me will lose interest in the game as this is a bit steep a price to pay for just a couple of items that don't even turn purple. If I can't see any way of getting my gear upgraded enough to do experts so I can qualify for rolling on much better gear, I may end up leaving the game altogether.

I started with Rift back in beta, through headstart and launch. I played as a sub player for a long time and took a break before SL came out. I came back shortly before the f2p was announced and I must say, I much prefer the sub model over any of the f2p games.

When things seem hopelessly out of reach, yeah, people wander off. The upgrade costs are absolutely overwhelming. I'd like to see these costs reduced, otherwise, I may just give up.

[Nuuli]

I was trying to upgrade some of my crafted armor in order to be at par to run experts with my guild mates. The first upgrade metal amender, although a bit costly, I could see one of. However, the next tier wanted one advanced metal amender and 8 Void Source Accelerators and that is just to take the chest piece from a blue to another blue with not that big a jump in stats.

I upgraded my Detailed Thalasite Halberd 2h weapon from the original crafted item, but when I went to upgrade it to the next and final tier, the cost skyrocketed. In order to obtain the exquisite Thalasite Halberd I needed not only the advanced weapon amender, but 20 Void Stone Accelerators. Those cost 5850 VS or 540 credits on the Rift store.

So just to upgrade two items to where I would at least be able to be competitive just doing lvl 65 content, I would have to spend a fortune.....which I do not have. I can't even reach a cap of vs each week...you see, I am a casual player. But I am also not made of money, so I do not see where I shall be able to enjoy the higher end content anytime soon.

I craft and have found it more cost effective to craft my own gear rather than purchase it. Most drops I've gotten I can't use as my current gear is a bit better. I've also seem prices for my crafted gear on the AH tank so I can't even get return on my investment.

Folks like me will lose interest in the game as this is a bit steep a price to pay for just a couple of items that don't even turn purple. If I can't see any way of getting my gear upgraded enough to do experts so I can qualify for rolling on much better gear, I may end up leaving the game altogether.

I started with Rift back in beta, through headstart and launch. I played as a sub player for a long time and took a break before SL came out. I came back shortly before the f2p was announced and I must say, I much prefer the sub model over any of the f2p games.

The leverage to pay 2 play is even greater, the game is being simplified, consolidated to be more efficient for what ever's left of development.

Crafting is a plat sink.

I'm black tier loyalty, but it's pushing me to reconsider how far I want to support the game.

[lynspottery]

So I am not the only voice in the wilderness on this issue then.